Arabic Literature and Translation

Friday Films: ‘The Impossible,’ Based on a Novel by Mostafa Mahmoud

Every Friday, ArabLit suggests a new classic film-book combination — for you to watch and read — until we run out of steam about 20 weeks in:

This week, it’s the 1965 film The Impossible, (al-Moustahil), directed by Hussein Kamal, based on Mostafa Mahmoud’s 1960 novel of the same name.

Mahmoud was a physician and a prolific author, having written eighty-some books on various subjects, but known mostly as an Islamic writer. But The Impossible is not one of his didactic works, but a melodrama about an unhappy man who finds the impossible — love.

Actress Nadia Lotfi told Al Ahram in 2014: “The writer Mostafa Mahmoud, having seen me in Al-Moustahil (The Impossible), a film based on his novel, said that my performance ‘shook the viewers.”